When I Come Back, You'll Know
by alicemayisbetter
Summary: When Kurt decided to tap Blaine's shoulder on the stairs that day, it was because of just the faintest bit of a memory. But that was impossible, right? Short fluffy Klaine.


**Because I spend a lot of time thinking about memories, and how _weird_ it is that our past experiences form who we are but we constantly forget _so much_ of them- and then this happened. And I'm a sucker for cute!Klaine.**

**Disclaimer: Glee is not mine, thus neither are the characters contained therein, I remain, faithfully yours, not Ryan Murphy.**

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><p>Kurt and Blaine laugh, Kurt's arm on Blaine's waist and Blaine's hand on Kurt's hair as they sit under a tree in a public park an hour away from Lima and watch Wes twitch helplessly while Santana gets closer and closer to him, bitching him out for reasons everyone's lost track of long ago. Quinn looks like she wants to smile at Finn and Rachel looks like she wants to hold his hand but no one has anyone anymore and for once there hasn't been a girlfight in weeks, and even Rachel can admit maybe this is better.<p>

Blaine doesn't really register this, though, because meanwhile the sun is catching in Kurt's eyes which are watching delightedly as Blaine gives him that _look_ and it's as goddamn hot as always, and neither of them remember an auditorium two years and seven months ago because really why on earth would they?

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><p>It's still dark except for the stage full of black-and-blue singing automatons, a terrifying symphony of <em>Glee Club is cancelled already, we're such a joke<em> and perfectly-done Amy Winehouse which should just _not be possible_. New Directions, all six of them, file out of their seats still shell-shocked. Tina tries to stay optimistic despite Vocal Adrenaline's complete and utter decimation of her limited confidence, Artie decides that another part of his life is about to crash and burn, Mercedes attempts to suppress the urge to run up there and strangle those stuck-up showoffs with their polka-dotted costumes, Rachel wonders, not for the first time, what on Earth possessed her dads to live in Lima, Ohio where things like _this_ happen, and Finn never expected much of Glee club anyway because really, _Glee Club_. Kurt, meanwhile, is shaking his head at his own naiveté, wondering why he thought Glee would be any different from anything else in this pathetic, pathetic boondocks of a town. He concerns himself with the usual internal pep talk: _Don't you dare show emotion, Kurt, don't you dare, because you are more intelligent and more talented than all of them even if you can't prove it right now, you are a majestic bitch and you always will be, someday in just two and a half years you will be in New York and there you can force people to love you_, and so he's not, of course, looking.

He feels himself collide with someone and that someone's glasses fall to the floor, and more from reflex than anything he bends down to help find them. At this point the lights in the audience come up, and he looks over to see a boy about his age with curly black hair crouched on the floor next to him. Glasz eyes meet hazel and Kurt almost suspects that there is someone in there just like him because if that's not a look of _I'm just waiting for you to figure out what I am so you can hurt me_ then Kurt thinks he's been reading his own emotions pretty wrong. "Hi," he breathes at this boy in a relatively acceptable blazer who somehow hasn't freaked out about the boy in women's clothing he just accidentally touched.

"Hi," the boy breathes back, and Kurt really wants to say something more, anything at all, but just then someone in a matching blazer calls "Come on, Blaine, we'll be late!" and so he grabs his—pink sunglasses, really?—and straightens up and turns away. Kurt considers calling out to him for just a moment and then sees Finn out of the corner of his eye and _oh right, that, yes, well_ so instead he just files the incident away under Nice But Puzzling Things To Come Back To Later. This file is soon full of Finn opening up Porta-Potties and holding Marc Jacobs jackets and YSL scarves and the boy who didn't have to be persuaded not to hate him is long forgotten, surely erased permanently from Kurt's mind. Kurt turns, and follows Finn's immense height to a bus ride filled with awkward defeated small talk and other petty concerns that leave no room for a boy with odd sunglasses.

Still, one day Kurt is standing on an unfamiliar staircase, and though he sees what seems to be an impossible number of boys in identical uniforms he has to pick one to ask for help; he's about to tap the shoulder of a slim blond boy when his hand suddenly changes its mind and brushes someone with slicked-down black hair with _way _too much gel, who just seems to resonate with Kurt a little more, who's just a bit more _okay_, and you just get those feelings about people sometimes, nothing weird about that.

Blaine feels a hand on his shoulder and turns to a boy wearing a reasonable last-minute imitation of the uniform who has undefinable eyes and a sort of tragically astonished look as though this hallway filled with rather ordinary boys has somehow transcended all his most private dreams for the future. Blaine decides that he quite approves of this boy and that something really ought to be done about him because no one's wildest dreams should culminate in a staircase full of manic prep school kids.

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><p>Now, though, Blaine leans in to kiss Kurt and they snuggle happily against each other, watching as Santana and Brittany lock pinkies and Tina waltzes Mike around while Mike sings <em>I Me Mine<em> almost acceptably, and you almost want to fast-forward through this one moment to get to graduations and apartments and rings and kisses and children with Rachel's eyes or Kurt's smile or Mercedes's hair or Blaine's height, but really this is a moment for _right now_, as they're transcendently happy all on their own, with perhaps just a little thought spared for the life-changing moment no one will ever remember.


End file.
